Playlist – July 2021

Riding the wave of my return to New York but brought down by one of those breakthrough infections you hear about, and that colors the party we were planning to throw as I wrote this but held off a month considering the numbers as well as this playlist. The crushing heatwaves in both cities I wandered through this month also seep into the sticky party and the sweaty paranoid melancholy of this month’s selections. Hope you enjoy, as always. Continue reading for notes. 

Bandcamp versions via Hype Machine’s merch table feature: https://hypem.com/merch-table/7u5B2p361qPgOG7JUcApPu

• Curtis Harding, “I Won’t Let You Down” – One of my favorite contemporary soul singers, I spent months after his debut, Soul Power, came out telling everyone it was my favorite summertime record, in that high pantheon alongside King Khan and the Shrines’ What Is?I and The Dirtbombs’ Ultraglide in Black. Seeing him live – on a sizzling double-bill with Chicano Batman – a few years later cemented that love. Harding gets better, deeper, and more nuanced with every record and this simmering, slow-burn promise was exactly the cool breeze I needed on some hot days, the promise of something better rising in the distance. 
• Emily Duff, “Don’t Hang the Moon” – I’ve waxed rhapsodic about Eric Ambel’s production and guitar, as definitive an element of rocking, moody Americana in my lifetime as anything else I can think of, and I don’t think quite enough credit is given to his band as a backing unit. That supple trio of Ambel with Ambel’s Yayhoos comrade and original Georgia Satellite Keith Christopher on bass and Phil Cimino’s evocative drumming lit up countless nights in the bar I miss more than any other, the Lakeside Lounge, and they conjure an extra helping of their special magic on this bullseye of an Emily Duff record. Augmented by Charlie Giordano on keys, who I became a fan of with James Carter’s Django Reinhard tribute, and the always great Mary Lee Kortes on harmonies, they paint the perfect, rollicking and melancholy settings for Duff’s stained-glass-at-dusk voice and subtly infectious songs. 
• Honey Dijon featuring Annette Bowen and Nikki-O, “Downtown” – An instant summer late-night anthem from producer/DJ Honey Dijon with London singer Annette Bowen and Detroit deep house queen Nikki-O, this is the kind of just-retro-enough tribute to the dance floor (and sometimes gauzy nostalgia for downtown as a concept and an ideal) I’m a sucker for. That squelching bass shot through with long, bright synth tones and cowbell and woodblock percussion that reverberates right up my spine (and ripples through the next two tunes). 
• Kid Creole and the Coconuts, “Chances” – An OG of horn-infused rock in a genre blender, few things make me as happy as those classic Kid Creole (August Darnell) records and this comeback is a classic slice of what he and his band do so well. This is an ode to reclaiming our own specific brands of joy and a swaggering anthem in the “I’ve Got a Lot of Living to Do” vein, with a  popping arrangement featuring the Kid and a horn player tossing hot-potato lines back and forth. “And if I dare to lose my mind, you know it won’t be the last time; at least I won’t be breaking down the door or out to rob a liquor store.” 
• Kings of Brass, “Graveyard” – A newer, up-and-coming New Orleans brass band. This new single is a burst of dancing-through-the-fire energy. All the love of a homegoing ceremony with enough hints of the rage at letting people go too soon in the kind of dance party I hope breaks out – spontaneously or contrived – when I go. 
• April March, “Allons-y” – This propulsive new single from April March (The Pussywillows, the cover of “Chick Habit” from Death Proof) in French comes from a collaborative EP with Olivia Jean (who also does a damn fine English version of the song as “Let’s Go”). Hints of ESG swirl with the swinging ‘60s on this single that feels like a dance party in a room with a single broken-disco ball, sweating walls, and all the booze just a little warm. 
• Miranda and the Beat, “When Are You Coming Home” – This is a firey return to form from one of my favorite New York rock bands. A little more of a slow, deep groove than the last couple songs, that infectious organ line and the backing vocals feel like they’re trying to get the ferocious lead vocal and barbed, echoing guitar stabs to dance with them while we all sway in that tractor beam tension. 
• The Red Microphone, “Viva La Quice Brigade” – The Red Microphone first hit my radar with a fantastic record backing Amina Baraka and this follow up, And I Became Of Dark, felt like it was an arrow thrown directly for my heart. Vibrant production from Ivan Julian of Richard Hell and the Voidoids paints this five piece band, with Dave Pietaro on poetry and drums in three dimensions, frequently letting Ras Moshe Burnett’s blistering flute line and Rocco John Iacovone’s alto and bass clarinet fade to the background to shade Laurie Towers’ melodic, rich bass lines. “Fight the fascists where we find them – I’m unwell.” 
• Brandee Younger, “Reclamation” – Every time I’ve been lucky enough to see Brandee Younger live, I’ve been blown away, the great harp voice of her generation. This first single off her Impulse! Records debut portends the best record she’s yet made. Its rich landscape conjures classic spiritual jazz of the ‘70s without putting it too tightly in that box. The crystalline tone of her harp shines light through a remarkable Chelsea Baratz tenor solo and Anne Drummond’s flute, flowing through a rock-solid rhythm section of Dezron Douglas (also the co-writer) on bass and Allan Mednard’s drumming. 
• Xordox, “Dark Matter” – JG Thirlwell’s been a thread that ties together music I love – and introduced me to more music I’ve come to love – since I first found his work as Foetus (both as artist and remixer) when I was a teenager. I saw an early version of this project, at the time a synth duo with Sarah Lipstate (Noveller) at John Zorn’s club The Stone during a celebration of William Burroughs centennial and it blew my head open and turned me into a blithering idiot. This second record has a similar searching tone, flowing between melancholy and hope, as the tunes before and after it, the synthesizers calling up the same human feeling as the intersection of Younger’s harp and Drummond’s flute on one hand and Lloyd Maines’ pedal steel on the other. 
• The Flatlanders, “Moanin’ Of The Midnight Train” – The soaring and introspective tone of this felt in a similar lane to the Younger, even in a different genre. Some of my favorite work from this trio has always been Joe Ely singing a Butch Hancock song and this continues that proud tradition. Aching, searching Lloyd Maines slide and steel guitar beautifully underscore lines like “The last place you look is where you’re gonna find it; you don’t even know what it is that’s hid. But you feel so sad – you ain’t doing so bad – hey, you got this far without a clue.” 
• Phoenix Lazare, “Rubberband” – The debut album from Canadian singer-songwriter Lazare is full of the poison-tipped wit and ingratiating melody I’m looking for in this genre. That slow, swaggering drum pattern and the hot-molasses vocal threaded through a laid-back verse and an anthemic accusation of a chorus create an atmosphere I want to dig deeper into. “Looking back, I should have acted on all my suspicions you had bad intentions from the start.” 
• Mega Bog, “Crumb Back” – The drums and horn section kicking in behind the laid back riff toward the start of this Mega Bog tune is one of those moments that always gets me excited. Her voice, laid back, draws the listener forward and serves as part tour guide and part Diogenes leading us with her lantern through a suspicious world. Reminded me a little bit of a gutsier, funkier David Behrman or Doveman. “Well I don’t know you, really, but I’m an ear for you.” 
• Jesse Malin, “State of the Art” – Malin’s post D-Generation work is a particular brand of comfort food for me that resonates with the part of me that’s tired of wasting time and wants to both remember and honor friends and moments that have slipped away. This single from his upcoming record continues his mastery of the subtle tribute, the way he can sum up a place and a time through the lens of an interpersonal relationship. Sometimes you want a hard send-stopped rhyme to land on from someone who’s still trying to figure it out and a piano part that ends up stuck in your head for days.  
• The Ophelias, “Sacrificial Lamb” – I love the harmonies on this grab-me-by-the-collar single from Cincinnati band The Ophelias and the way those harmonies are nested in the heart of a joyful clatter, split asunder and then stitched back together kintsugi style with bright strings.
• Charley Crockett, “I Need Your Love” – The finest of the current breed of country crooners hit it out of the park with the slinky saloon tempo on this new single. Way behind the beat, propped up by the sweetness of the horns like he’s leaning on the jukebox for a last call declaration/purging of whatever feels like the truth that’s boiling inside him. “Many times I acted foolish when I was really just afraid. And all of my good times would up and walk away.” 
• KC Jones, “Beginnings and Ends” – Lafayette, Louisiana-based singer-songwriter KC Jones plays with some ‘60s folk-rock textures in a way I can’t stop listening to. That skating rink keyboard riff buffets the jangling acoustic guitar and the ebullient backing vocals spark against her great too-amused-to-be-world-weary vocals and a guitar solo with smears of darkness around the edges of its bursting joy around the halfway mark are some of the touches that keep me coming back. 
• Les Filles de Illighadad, “Telilit” – This marvelous Tuareg band’s (daughters of Illighadad) debut album, recorded at the Brooklyn venue Pioneer Works, adds new shading and textures to the music coming out of their deservedly world-renowned scene. An extended wash of guitar and vocal harmony around deceptively simple percussion transports me to a place not quite like anything else. 
• Johanna Hedva, “2 Coins (Tears Are What God Uses to Lubricate Its Big Machine Of Nothing)” – I got turned onto Johanna Hedva’s work from the newish and incredibly exciting Columbus online radio Verge.fm. An author and performance artist as well as musician, Hedva’s debut album BLACK MOON LILITH IN PISCES IN THE FOURTH HOUSE reminds me a little bit of the heavier parts of Current 93 with unfurling, decaying, big acidic guitar tones over incantatory just-try-me emphatic vocals and a rich sense of dynamics as the key to world building. I loved this so much I ordered both their books. 
• William Parker, “Mayan Space Station” – It’s tempting to say William Parker’s on a tear this year but when isn’t he? The indefatigable bassist, composer, bandleader, and organizer – I’d like to take a moment to say how glad I was the 25^th anniversary of his Vision Fest, the great gathering of the free jazz tribes every year, was streaming so I could enjoy it while getting over being sick – has put out more work that surprised even a dyed-in-the-wool, fan-since-I-was-18 like me, than I would have thought possible. High on that list is Mayan Space Station, an exploratory, hard-rocking guitar trio with Parker on upright, Gerald Cleaver on drums, and Ava Mendoza on electric guitar. This title track starts with an epically deep and wide groove from Parker sparking against a spiky, abstract shuffle from Cleaver under a rain of sparks – sharp arpeggios, hard-flamenco flurries, and righteous, holy water riffs – from Mendoza. Fire music for people who still want to dance. 
• Birds of Maya, “Reccesinater” – Another perfectly out-there, muscular and spacey guitar trio record from long-running avant-garage stars Birds of Maya. Their first record in eight years, Valdez, reminded me exactly how much I’d been missing their brand of thick, sludgy and bright noise. I got both the guitar and bass riffs on this back-alley-weirdo anthem stuck in my head for days at a time.  
• DJ Manny, “Club GTA” – That late night sticky heat with your friends vibe continues but at a right angle in this surprising, delightful contemporary footwork track. The thick, sludgy bass flecked with those bright and almost squeaky keys builds to the same kind of ecstasy the house and jungle records I loved in my early 20s (when I was still a little too “cool” for disco) but is too amped up and curious to stay there for long. The big hand claps, the typewriter hi-hats that would fit on a death metal stage, all this heart pumping drama is used to set a scene, not to give us an easy out. This isn’t catharsis as shorthand, it’s as complicated and wild as the real thing. 
• Darsombra, “Call The Doctor (Sun Side)” – This explosive Baltimore krautrock band comprised of guitarist-writer-singer Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton on synth, percussion, vocals, and visuals has a similar vibe where I’m not sure if I’m at a party, a wake, a holy ceremony, or a riot but I feel like I’m exactly where I should be. A side-long trip through acerbic, ecstatic tones. 
• Rosie Turton featuring Jitwam, “Part II – Jitwam’s Ronnie in the Attic Mixxx” – Trombonist, composer, and bandleader Rosie Turton from the London jazz scene I talk about so much, put out a ferocious party of an EP with her Quintet on the new Expansions and Transformations – Part I and II. This remix/cut-up by frequent collaborator Jitwam (born in India, based in Brooklyn), adds additional bubbling bass from NATE08 and streamlines the tune, highlighting Turton’s molten, wily tone and the uncanny empathy of the players while turning up the hot-asphalt dance qualities. 
• Intence featruing Countree Hype, “Yahoo Boyz” – I’ve never quite moved past being a dilettante where dancehall’s concerned – I saw Beenie Man once – but when it hits my radar, I always enjoy it. This tune from rising star Intence (honestly, I’m not sure if Countree Hype is the producer, a record label, or a featured vocalist, and the internet has not been much help) is one of the most infectious dance tunes I’ve heard all year. 
• Cadence Weapon featuring Jacques Greene, “Senna” – The slinky keyboard bass and Steve Reich-recalling cells in the Greene beat on this track from Toronto rapper Cadence Weapon grabbed me by my collar the minute I heard it. It’s a perfect, slow walking, slinky late night groove for Cadence Weapons’ rapid fire delivery and curlicue digressions. 
• Nene H, “We Wait” – There’s a similar creeping, suspended quality to this fascinating advance single from Istanbul-born and Berlin-based singer-producer Nene H. She deploys the elements of dance music in the kind of introspective, uncanny collage that has the same world-revealing play and sensual reveling in disjunction as a Rauschenberg combine or a Venus Khoury-Ghata poem. 
• Lucy Gooch, “6AM” – This Bristol-based composer merges a cinematic sense of drama with the long tones and expansiveness of the ambient I grew up with in a way I find utterly irresistible. “I know I’m losing my mind…Now I can see what’s in front of me,” with an amplified exhale that feels like you’re being let in on a secret. Like a glass of good red wine while you watch a perfect sunset. 
• Yves Mon featuring YUNGMORPHEUS, “Walk On Water” – The guitars and sweetness of Yves Mon’s voice and production melt over a slow drum track thrown off-balance by just enough disorienting echo and an almost-buried, gorgeously glum verse from LA-via-Miami rapper YUNGMORPHEUS. Driving with the windows down through a heat mirage or a fever dream. 
• Spirit Adrift, “Forge Your Future” – Also playing with the bright, sun-dappled tones of the ‘70s, Arizona hard rock band Spirit Adrift lean into juicy riffs and an almost self-consciously anthemic vocal about building the life you want. On paper, this is the kind of thing I wouldn’t give much of a chance but in practice, hell, I’d work my way right to the edge of the pit and wait for that guitar tone to work its way through all my muscles. 
• Brian Jackson featuring Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, “Ethiopian Sunshower” – Brian Jackson, best known as the bandleader/co-writer for most of Gil Scott-Heron’s classic period work, gets a perfect backdrop for this new entry in Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead series. Jackson’s keys and flute flow through the rippling waves of percussion and bass in a tune built for greeting the new day. 
• Snoh Aalegra, “Everything” – This Swedish R&B singer’s third album makes a virtue of consistency without ever boring me. This song is a prime example, a relaxed groove with a tight focus with a muted arrangement that beckons the listener in, it doesn’t chase us, grafted to a melody I want to sink into.  
• Leon Bridges featuring Robert Glasper, “Born Again” – I think of this as zooming out to a 70mm widescreen take on classic R&B. I liked that first Leon Bridges record everyone went crazy for but my interest ramped up as he’s brought in techniques that recall different eras and swirled in different flavors. His new album, Gold-Diggers Sound, leads with this perfectly burnished, expansive tune featuring Robert Glasper on keys and a co-write and a subtly smoking horn section of Terrace Martin from Herbie Hancock’s band (and signature collaborator of Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg) and longtime Glasper foil Keyon Herrold. 
• Durand Jones and the Indications featuring Aaron Frazier, “The Way That I Do” – Still a little more classicists than Bridges or Aalegra, Durand Jones and the Indications continue to change their approach slightly while still maintaining continuity (and from all accounts retaining their rep as one of the best live acts around) and they make the most of the breakout success of their drummer Frazier whose solo album took the world by storm earlier this year. This string-drenched couples skate feels like all the best parts of a summer afternoon in a vibrant neighborhood. 
• Shenseea, “Run Run” – I heard of dancehall singer Shenseea a few years ago when she put out a collaboration with Vybz Kartel and this was a delightful reminder of the intense charisma and inimitable voice she brings to this sparse, hard dance music. 
• Índio da Cuíca, “Cuíca Malandra/Cuíca Encantada” – I believe I have Lars Gotrich’s essential email blasts to thank for turning me onto the Brazilian legend Índio da Cuíca and his breathtaking new album – at the age of 70 – Malandro 5 Estrelas. Working with bandleader and arranger Gabriel da Aquino, this is a boiling river of charm and delight. A laid-back, seducer’s vocal in the middle of a whirlwind of joy with the friction drum almost playing hypeman. 
• Yotuel, Gente De Zona, Descember Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, El Funky, “Patria y Vida” – This reggaeton protest song associated with the recent Cuban movement inverts the classic Homeland or Death slogan into “Homeland and Life.” I don’t know enough to comment on it – my love was visceral and a response to hearing it everywhere – but I’d point you to Anamaria Sayre’s excellent NPR primer. 
• Lala Lala, “Diver” – Anne and I rolled the dice on this Chicago band a few years ago at the Beat Kitchen, I think, with erstwhile Chicago guide Ken Hite and they blew my mind. This new song provides evidence of their continued evolution from, as Ken said, “Like putting silly putty against a classic Pixies show,” without sacrificing that fresh, buoyant energy. The cello lines and swooping background vocals gives the song an anthemic oomph with a molten, longing center. “Dragged back by the undertow: the salt, the spit, the magic. To last. To be romantic.” 
• Lost Girls, “Carried By Invisible Bodies” – I fell hard for Norwegian singer-songwriter Jenny Hval with his first solo album Viscera about a decade ago. She knocked me backwards with the live show not long after at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. When I saw her a couple albums later (I want to say touring Apocalypse, Girl) down in Knoxville at Big Ears, in a room a similar size but twice as full, she’d brought in more accessible, danceable arrangements and fused them to that same singular, beguiling view of the world. She has yet to make a bad record or a bad novel. This collaboration with Håvard Volden as Lost Girls is another hard-to-nail-down but harder to walk away from home run. Searching, poignant, and dramatic. 
• Scott Reeves Quintet, “Shapeshifter” – Anne and I were lucky enough to catch two sets at 55 Bar, one of my favorite spots in the West Village and a dying breed combination of neighborhood dive bar and serious jazz hang. One of those sets was the record release for this gorgeous album from Trombonist/flugelhorn player Reeves, better known for his big band work. This glowing original, with sparkling piano work from Mike Holober and a nuanced, delicate but driving rhythm section courtesy of Russ Spiegel on guitar, Howard Britz on bass, and Andy Watson on drums, was a highlight of that Sunday evening and is a highlight of the record. 
• Scorn, “Something That Was” – Napalm Death was a guiding light for me, the gateway to all the other Earache death metal bands, as a preteen/early teenager. By the time I was able to see them, founding drummer Mick Harris had long since moved on into a series of fascinating electronics-drenched atmospheric work. One of the longest running of those projects is Scorn and this new record is my favorite thing to write to so far this year. Enough grit and texture to keep the ambient qualities from taking over, an expansive view on the world, and a sense of mystery, like layers of nostalgia are being pulled apart and sorted through in crumbling layers. 
• Henry Threadgill featuring Georgia Anne Muldrow, “Clear and Distinct (Georgia Anne Muldrow remix)” – Georgia Anne Muldrow’s been on an astonishing streak with her own work and this remix of one of the great American composers, Henry Threadgill, condenses and refracts one of the best pieces off his stellar 2018 album Double Up Plays Double Up Plus. 
• Ledisi featuring Metropole Orkest, “Four Women” – I’ve been a fan of Ledisi for many years and a fan of Nina Simone even longer, but I was still stunned by how moving I found this tribute record. Ledisi doesn’t feel an obligation to the original phrasing, there’s barely a hint of impression here, but she plays into the intensity and fire of these songs. This is a highlight on a record full of highlights and a reminder how much I love this song I’ve probably played 1,000 times by many singers. 
• Susan Alcorn, Leila Bordreuil, and Ingrid Laubrock, “Indigo Blue (Wayfarin Stranger)” – No one has done as much to broaden the scope of the pedal steel guitar in decades as Susan Alcorn. I’ve been lucky enough to see her several times and every time has been a reminder of the specific, intense emotional space that instrument taps into as well as another expansion of possibility. For the Bird Meets Wire album she teams up with one of my favorite saxophonists, Ingrid Laubrock, and cellist Leila Bordreuil. The way this trio uses the commonalities in the range of their instruments, and they use those tones without ever getting in each other’s ways. The reharmonizing the classic wayfaring stranger chords and the extended, glistening tones, felt some kinship with the powerful emotional hit of Ledisi, Threadgill’s double sextet and Harris’s gnarled landscapes. 
• Rodney Crowell, “Hymn #43” – Since Houston Kid, every single Rodney Crowell record has given me a few songs I’ve loved as much as I love any song. His new one, Triage, sets another standard for his already high bar for doing the work, not just the discipline of writing but also the work of digging deep in himself and outward, to understand and encompass the rest of the world. This plainspoken highlight finds comfort and an ever-moving horizon as he sings, at the end of each chorus, “There will always be more work to do.” 
• Kate McGarry and the Keith Ganz Ensemble, “Anthem” – Another contemporary hymn, though one that’s been in my life since it appeared on Leonard Cohen’s The Future back in the early ’90s. One of my favorites of his songs, and a text that I still often reach to for comfort almost 30 years later. McGarry’s moving reading of the melody makes it shine like dew on a new branch, with nuanced, subtle backing behind her from Ganz and the group, with especially striking contributions from Obed Calvaire’s dancing, parrying drums, Gary Versace’s chiaroscuro piano, and a breathtaking solo from Ron Miles on cornet. 
• Corinne Sharlet, “Deep Water” – I learned about Corinne Sharlet through old friend, the filmmaker and visual artist Devin Febboriello, who was working with her, and this was immediately up my alley. “Deep Water” conjures all the erotic longing of the best torch songs and weaves it with the existential impossibility of ever knowing someone. “I want to touch you forever, smelling your salty skin. You’re an unanswered question, the kind that doesn’t need to be filled in.” 
• Steve Dawson, “This is All There Is” – Ending with another great torch song from one of our finest writers and singers, especially in that idiom. The tune pivots on a slashing rope of diamonds of a guitar solo from Dawson and rides on a classic Hi Records-style groove and horn chart, in the service of a lyric about accepting and finding the beauty in the world as it is. Yet another artist I have John Wendland to thank for introducing me to again and again – I still have crystal clear memories of Dawson sweating through his t-shirt with a vocal as humid and powerful as that June St Louis air outside Schlafly at a Twangfest day show, and then keeping me dancing an entire night at the most fun wedding I’ve ever had the privilege of being invited to, between John and Marie. “This is all there is my friend, a moment to feel the turning of the moon.”